A New Orleans judge handed down a 50-year prison sentence on Monday to a parolee with a lengthy rap sheet for shooting and wounding a New Orleans police officer during a stop in Central City last October. And the sentence could grow longer next week if Michael Dabney is sentenced under the state's habitual offender law.

After a three-day trial, a jury on July 16 found Dabney, 35, guilty of attempted first-degree murder of Officer Troy Pichon and being a felon in possession of a gun, court records show. He shot Pichon in the upper right thigh.

In addition to the 50 years for shooting Pichon, Dabney got 50 years for the shot fired at a car that Pichon's partner was in, and another 20 years for the gun charge. However, Orleans Parish Criminal District Court Judge Karen Herman ordered the terms to run simultaneously for a net of 50 years, court records show.

Dabney, who was on parole at the time of the shooting, is set to go back to court on Aug. 4, as Attorney Leon Cannizzaro is seeking to have treated as a habitual offender under state law.

"We're dealing with a repeat violent offender and we've got to go after him as hard as the law will allow," said Cannizzaro spokesman Assistant District Attorney Christopher Bowman. "We believe that ends with him receiving a life sentence."

Dabney has prior convictions for armed robbery, battery, resisting an officer and possessing heroin and cocaine. He has prior arrests on charges including one count of first-degree murder and aggravated battery, being a felon in possession of a firearm, simple and armed robberies, several counts of battery and aggravated battery and several counts of domestic violence.

The fateful encounter between the parolee and the police officer happened around 9:20 p.m. on Oct. 28, 2013, as Pichon and his partner, Sgt. Eric Gillard, were patrolling a Central City area that had recently seen an uptick in carjackings and robberies, police said at the time.

The officers spotted Dabney, a "suspicious" man wearing a black hooded sweatshirt and camouflage shorts, walking near the intersection of Third and LaSalle streets, an arrest report said. He appeared to be hiding something in his front waistband and he kept glancing at the police car in a "nervous manner," the report said.

Pichon hopped out of his squad car's passenger seat to talk to the man, who took off running. Gillard drove the police car around to try to block the man's path. The man then removed a handgun from his waistband and started firing at the police car, the arrest report said.

Pichon shot several rounds at Dabney, but missed.

That's when Dabney, according to the report, swiveled and returned fire, striking Pichon in the leg. Then he fled. A police dog found Dabney two hours later hiding under a house a few blocks away.

Pichon, 35, joined the NOPD in 2009 after nine years as a firefighter with the New Orleans Fire Department.

The Orleans Parish Office of the Public Defender, which represents Dabney, declined to comment on the case.

NOTE:This story has been updated since it was first published with new comments from the district attorney's spokesman.